Withdrawal
is a young man trying to be a hero with his friends, The Major Malfunctions. Personality He was protective of his teammates, particularly Finale.“If you’re confused about any of it, I’ll explain after,” Withdrawal said, again, his voice muffled slightly by his mask. “I think I got it,” Finale said, with a smile. She gave Caryatid another hug before hopping down. Behind her, her teammate resumed a more mortal form, everything about her relaxing and transitioning to its regular variant. - Excerpt from Beacon 8.8 He was determined to be a hero, and was eager to work with other teams.“We’ll figure it out,” Withdrawal told her. To me, he said, “We’ll do it. You can count on us.” The conviction and determination caught me off guard. “This isn’t paid work, I want to make sure you know.” - Excerpt from Beacon 8.8“Because there are some things that you can only see face to face, like how genuine someone is or if they’re interested in the mission.” “We’re interested,” he said, with barely a breath’s span between my statement ending and his starting.- Excerpt from Beacon 8.8 He intentionally attempts to make his equipment appear nonthreatening.He kicked up a plume of snow as he skidded to a stop, a pink and red bodysuit with gleaming silver apparatus extending from the limbs. He’d chosen a friendly pink for the round lenses that covered his eyes, the face plates that settled over parts of his face assembled so the seam offered something in the way of a disarming smile. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.x Relationships Withdrawal has a strong, familial relationship with teammates. At one point, he confessed to Finale that he could never hate her.“I thought you’d hate me.” “Can’t. No room for hating anyone,” he said. “Not good for me. And you’re the person I’m least able to hate.” - Excerpt from Interlude 17.x II He cared about Caryatid to the point that he agreed to become completely sober for her, despite being an addict from a young age. Appearance Withdrawal was in between Caryatid and Finale in height, but wore an exoskeleton that Antares described as an "agility frame"; the frame consisted of spray-painted metal bars which seemed to buckle under its own weight, which offered little actual defense but possessed mechanical feet and arms that extended his limbs by two feet. Withdrawal also wore a simple mask comprised of a plate of metal with glowing pink eyes, attached to a rubbery hood.The guy was the tinker of the group, it looked like- and it was good they had one, given the ‘malfunction’ part of the group’s name. He would have been between the two girls in height, except for his suit. I hesitated to call it power armor, exactly. Power armor implied armor that was heavy enough that it needed machine power to move- remove that power and the tinker was stuck. The stuck part probably held true, but this guy had no armor. No, if I had to come up with a term for this guy, I would have called it an agility frame. It didn’t thicken his body, but stretched it out, with an mechanical extension adding two feet to his legs, long mechanical gloves that started at his wrists extending the arms much the same way, and a lightweight set of bars and discs providing the bare minimum of strength to hoist what looked like a syringe filled with maybe ten gallons of pink fluid. The syringe’s needle wasn’t the only mount at the front of the fluid’s case, and various other tools or attachments surrounded the front end of the cylinder, all in metal of varying shades, glosses, and textures. The frame was made on a budget, given how the spray paint had settled on different pieces in different ways, and it was almost buckling between the guy’s lean weight and the weight of the cylinder, to the point that the line of mechanical foot to calf to thigh formed a curve, not a straight line. His mask was a simple one, a circular plate of metal with eyeholes cut out, worn over a hood of something rubbery that clung to his head. The eyes glowed pink. - Excerpt from Beacon 8.8 His suit is red-pink, with silvery elements that connect it to the exoskeleton. On a different occasion, Withdrawal's costume glowed teal rather than pink.I glanced at Withdrawal, who was standing off to one side, glowing teal tonight, not pink. He’d welcome the chance to get some experience, to help out good guys. Hopefully we could get him contacts. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.3 Abilities and Powers Withdrawal is a tinker, who specializes in creation of physics-breaking nanofluids. His powerset originates from the mobile habitats and nanofluid of an alien Molluscoid species that were used to explore a low-gravity moon and facilitate adaptation with the species living on said moon. Stasis-inducing nano-goop was initially used for maintenance purposes and later modified and deployed in attempt to protect the core of planet and break that cycle.Heavens 12.all Equipment Besides his pseudo-armor, Withdrawal carried a large syringe connected to a heavy vat of odd pink liquid. He can seemingly change the brightness of his nanofluids on a whim.Across the street, in the copse of old trees that were bounded in on four sides by the suburb-like neighborhood, a slice of nature that had been preserved as everything else was cleared away and a pre-fab neighborhood was dropped down, bubblegum pink lenses appeared out of the darkness. I saw the syringe appear in a similar way, the fluid going from dark to pink, bubbling visibly, until it was as neon pink as anything else. He moved it like a baton, waving us over. ... Withdrawal had gone completely dark. I saw him set his syringe down and lean against a tree. With his elongated limbs, the stilt-like legs, he looked very tall as he peered down at us, his head difficult to see in the branches of a mature tree. - Excerpt from Gleaming 9.4 History Background Withdrawal grew up with a neglectful and abusive mother. As a result of the abuse, Withdrawal fell into a cycle of alcohol and drugs at a very young age. This ultimately resulted in his trigger one day, as he was suffering hallucinations caused by alcohol withdrawal and came to the realization that he would die before he could escape this cycle. His trigger seems to be somewhat abnormal and prolonged due to delirium's influence, leading to him having visions not only of an Entity, but molluscoid ghosts talking to him.Dark shadows danced across his vision. Glimpses of shadow-people, built like snails, or clams, but with limbs so long there were clouds around their legs. They turned and they looked at him. They communicated in whispers that should have been incomprehensible. They spoke to him in those same whispers. - Excerpt from Interlude 17.x II Withdrawal triggered at 12, the same year as his teammate Caryatid. He met his teammates online, and dropped out of school to form a team with them.“We got in touch online. All of us got our powers young- it was Caryatid and me at first. Finale a year later. We had different names then, obviously,” Withdrawal said. - Excerpt from Beacon 8.7 Though they faced limited success as a hero team, they did manage to stay together over the course of six years.A painfully slow search online brought up some images of kid heroes with terrible costumes. They’d been small timers before Gold Morning, small town ‘heroes’ who’d rotated between three middle-of-nowhere towns in North Dakota looking for villains or criminals. Four years of activity and they hadn’t found any. It would have been easy to dismiss them, or to disparage them. They had dropped out of school to be heroes and had no wins. The lack of education was clear in the spelling errors. It worried me a bit that their referral had come from ‘Super Magic Dream Parade’, the loopy team from Boston, who had apparently heard about what we were doing and passed on word. The Major Malfunctions were teenagers now and they’d been kids when they’d triggered. They’d stayed heroes across six years, and they’d stayed together. - Excerpt from Beacon 8.7 Gold Morning He survived Gold Morning, but was presumably forcibly recruited like everyone else. Post-Fallen fall The Major Malfunctions were stationed near a tent city when Breakthrough contacted the team and offered them to work within their growing network of hero teams.My destination was a tent city. Most in the tent cities had already departed for more secure accommodations, but new people were coming in regularly, and there was a stubborn holdout. As I flew over, I could see the efforts that were being made to patch the problem. Rigid black sheets of insulation were being laid against the sides of tents with yellow fabric, tents were being moved together and connected, and equipment was being brought in- truckloads of what might have been heaters or furnaces. - Excerpt from Beacon 8.8 Withdrawal was present at their subsequent meeting with Victoria. Stumbled on Teacher's plot.Gleaming 9.3 Post-Goddess' Takeover Withdrawal was present during The Wardens attempt to stop March from reaching Brockton Bay time-bubbles. He tried to intercept March alongside Tempera, but was mauled and left seriously wounded.Heavens 12.allHeavens 12.x Post-Time Bubble Pop Fought alongside Breakthrough during the second Wardens' assault on Teacher's Compound.Dying 15.1 Withdrawal was able to apply his concoction to one of the Saint's mecha-angels, taking it out of commission.Dying 15.5 Post-Attack on Teacher Withdrawal alongside his teammates, held the line against civilians rioting near the Earth Cheit potal,Sundown 17.x and accidentally was caught in the wake of Contessa.Sundown 17.y Post-Ice Break Withdrawal was alongside the Undersiders and Breakthrough during the oversight duty of Titan Oberon and Eve. Once the battle started, he took on the role of chaperoning Lookout, who had insisted on making her scans during the battle, and then evacuated with her.Radiation 18.4 Site Navigation Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Tinker Category:Mover Category:Heroes Category:The Major Malfunctions Category:LGBT Characters Category:Point of View Character Category:Ward Characters